I
welcome Andrew Lohr's response (44, p. 281, December 1992) to my article (44,
pp. 169-174, September 1992) because he so clearly demonstrates what I tried to
point out. I noted that flood geologists sometimes wrote carelessly, even to the
point of contradicting themselves; that they presented ad hoc arguments
with parameters changed without regard for connected phenomena; and that they
sometimes ignore empirical evidence.

For example, Lohr
suggests that carnivores may not have needed meat until some time after leaving
the ark. This, he notes, is speculation. Yet he advances such pure conjecture to
rebut a rational analysis based on available evidence. He does not consider that
it has the consequence that lions evolved from herbivores to carnivores in less
than 5000 yearsˇwithin the species, of course. Some carnivores, specifically
dogs, can get many of their calories from processed grains. But they will not be
adequately nourished on raw seeds, let alone on grass and leaves. Unless we are
to posit miraculous caches or harvests of grain, at best only green vegetation
would have been available to the creatures departing the ark. Yet the teeth of
dogs, let alone cats, are not capable of masticating vegetation finely enough to
secure the nutrients contained in the cells. The stomachs of carnivores are not
large enough to contain enough vegetation for total nutrition, nor the guts long
enough to extract what nutrients are available. Hence, on Lohr's suggestion, the
broad grinding molars of a vegetarian lion became the cutting molars of a
carnivorous lion in less than 5000 years, perhaps in a few centuries, decades,
or even years. The massive stomach and elongated intestine of the vegetarian
became the smaller stomach and shorter intestine of the carnivore, evolving with
a speed that is more than amazing.

But wait! Lohr gives
evidence for an even faster change: the curse of the tempter (singular,
applicable to the individual, in Genesis 3:14f) and the lion eating straw when
Messiah rules (Isaiah 11:7). These must be classed as miraculous events. If he
is suggesting that the lions that entered the ark were miraculously transformed
sometime after their exit, we must grant that God has that power. But we must
also exclude flood geology from science, for "Then there is a miracle"
is never a scientific claim.

There is another
problem here. How did the seeds of the plants survive a year's soaking? The
seeds I know, placed in water, either sprout or drown in a few days. It appears
that we must call on another miracle to preserve plant life, perhaps either
hydroponic culture in a quiet backwash or a celestial seed bank with aerial
reseeding of the earth by teams of angels. This is not entirely frivolous, for
Lohr has already introduced miracles. Having once called in miracles without
explicit scriptural warrant, any additional miracles must be allowed.

He has yet another
surmise, which may also have a bearing on the preservation of plant life. Maybe
the flesh of the animals killed by the flood did not putrefy. This, on the
normal flood-geology interpretation, runs into two problems. The first is that
the waters of the flood were so tumultuous that everything, except for the
divinely protected ark, was either torn apart or quickly buried. Indeed, given
the "official" description, I am amazed that any fish could have
survived the posited churning, sediment-laden waters. But perhaps there were
pockets of water at intermediate depth which were not as violent as those at
depth, where all land was torn up and then redeposited, or as those agitated by
the gales near the surface. Even so, the corpses would not have been in the
protected areas, but would have been torn apart or buriedˇunless miraculously
preserved. Of course, they would have had to have been preserved for years,
until the reproduction of herbivores of all types could provide enough prey for
all the carnivores. But note the vast number of ungulates and other herbivores
relative to the much smaller number of carnivores in nature, and the faster
reproduction rate of most carnivores. The second difficulty is that such
problems with plants as thorns, with animals as ferocity, and with bacteria and
fungi as disease and putrefaction, are consistently declared to begin with the
Fall and Curse. Are we now to hold that the carcasses of the animals God killed
to clothe Adam and Eve remained (unless eaten) until some time after the flood?
Was there a special creation of protists (mostly single-celled creatures), which
the Bible does not mention, sometime after the Flood? If so, how did the
ruminants digest their food during the thousands of years between the Fall and
the Flood without the activity of the enteric flora? How did the soil remain
fertile? More miracles? Lohr's suggestions only exacerbate the original problems
with flood geology.

Lohr taxes me with not
presenting explanations for some of the phenomena I note. Part of the response
to this challenge is simple, because the information is readily available. The
flightless moas, or their flying predecessors, could have walked from Australia
to New Zealand any time between the rise of what would become New Zealand about
145 to 125 million years ago and its separation from Australia about 80 to 60
million years ago. Somewhat earlier, a creature could have walked essentially
between all land areas, for all formed a single continent, Pangaea. That there
were birds fossilized 150 million years ago completes the answer.

I have no experimental
data to explain the expanding range of opossums. I can only note that they seem
to flourish where human occupation alters the natural environment. They
apparently thrive in urban southern California, where they were introduced. I
saw one regularly at night on the Pierce campus. I also cannot explain coyotes
doing well while the wolf population declines. While ecologists may have at
least partial answers, I am a philosopher and logician. So my questions
primarily involve the consistency of the flood geologists' statements, along
with the philosophical comparison of their approach with normal scientific
experimentation and theory construction.

Though my article
contains no mention of evolution or the age of the earth, Lohr brings in
evolution as if it were the basis of my critique. He apparently assumes that
anyone who does not accept the flood geologists' line must be an evolutionist.
While some Christian "old-earthers" hold that evolution is God's
method of creating, others believe that He created plants and animals at various
times over perhaps a billion yearsˇto mention but two of a range of
alternatives. Belief in an old earth and acceptance of unlimited evolutionary
change are not interchangeable.

Lohr writes,
"'Careless' contradictions can be corrected." True. But, as he
inadvertently demonstrates, they may also be multiplied.